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Washington Chow-chow

A pickled relish of tomatoes, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, and spices, preserved in vinegar and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Washington Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, and large onions into pieces.

  2. Pack the chopped vegetables in salt overnight.

  3. Drain well and mix in the spices.

Pickle with hot vinegar

  1. Boil 1 ½ gallons of vinegar.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the vegetables.

  3. Boil the same vinegar over the vegetables for three mornings.

  4. Pour the hot vinegar over the vegetables each time.

  5. On the third morning, add more vinegar, 2 boxes of mustard, ½ pint of sweet oil, and 1 pound of brown sugar.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the relish and absorb the vinegar and spices as they pickle.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and body that holds up through repeated vinegar pouring.
Cucumbers
Contribute crunch and fresh bulk to the chopped vegetable mixture.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the overall flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor and color to the finished pickle.

The step that matters

Salting the vegetables overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables by osmosis, so they stay crisp and absorb less liquid later. Draining them well afterward keeps the pickle from thinning and diluting the vinegar.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, cucumber, horseradish, mustard, celery, pepper):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, cucumber, horseradish, mustard, celery, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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